


Freedom

by tastewithouttalent



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Depressing, Grief/Mourning, Inline with canon, Insomnia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-01 02:36:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2756399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Irie is tired. He can’t remember anymore what it was to not be tired." When the battle is over and the future is saved, Irie is free to rest, if only he could.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Freedom

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Claws](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Claws/gifts).



Irie is tired.

He can’t remember anymore what it was to not be tired. It’s been so long -- months? maybe years, even, since he last slept well. Even his memory of warmth has long since gone cold, the bliss of ignorance before unasked knowledge shattered apart the shell of his happiness cast into darkness by awareness. His body aches as badly as it ever has, his skin is scraped raw and he can feel the bruises bone-deep in his ribs with every breath, but it’s not the physical pain that has sapped whatever last-reserve strength he has been running on.

Irie knows how to run on fumes. He’s good at it, has had to develop the skill over years of committing necessary betrayal, maintaining lies he’s never been naturally skilled at telling, keeping up a charade he never wanted and never asked for. It’s easier when he’s tired, when he can blame his continued forward momentum on the insistence of fate, when he lacks the mental stamina to formulate anything like resistance to the inevitable. But now the future is lying before him, the shackles of the future have fallen loose, he’s free.

He wishes, faint under the weight of resignation, that the freedom could have come  _before_  the loss.

The shape of the now-useless Mare sky ring pressing into his palm feels weightier than it ought, or maybe it’s his arm that is going weak now that there’s no one to see and no one who needs him anymore. It was a small request, asking to keep the sealed ring, so small the Arcobaleno didn’t question him before handing it over. It’s a minor thing to ask for the hero of the future. The past has been healed, thousands upon thousands of alternate futures mended and reforged into something clean and bright and unshadowed, an impossible array of worlds that can look forward towards the sunlight. But Irie’s spent too long in the shadows, has formed himself into a creature of desperate deception and useless effort, and with even the pretense of his false ring shattered he can’t remember how to cast his own light.

He curls in instead, hunches his shoulders into a curve on the bed that is too soft, uncomfortable from lack of familiarity, and when was the last time he remembered to sleep in a bed? All he can remember is the distant past, so far back that it was Byakuran’s sheets under him and the warmth of pale skin against his, back before everything he ever trusted slipped out from under his feet. The memory isn’t a comfort -- Irie can feel his eyes starting to burn, his shoulders starting to shake with trembling emotion -- but at least it’s  _something_ , something to feel aside from the echoing stillness of a life free, and empty, and cold. Irie shuts his eyes, and squeezes the ring against his palm, and wishes desperately for the relief of unconsciousness to come for him.

He’s not surprised when it doesn’t. His wishes never do come true.


End file.
